


Why Didn't You Wait?

by Papapaldi



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-22 04:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18130253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: In Vietnam it hadn’t mattered.  Nothing about his old life had mattered. But now, Eudora Patch was real again, and she was yet another corpse upon the pile of people that he'd failed to save.Klaus helps Diego communicate with Patch from beyond the grave.





	Why Didn't You Wait?

In the end, Klaus didn’t have to try too hard to conjure Patch. It wasn’t as if he had much experience in bringing spirits forward voluntarily, except for Ben, who’d have found his way back to them eventually regardless. He thought about her, the face that had been a ray of hope after his less than hospitable stay in the motel. He hadn’t given it a second thought when he’d pulled himself through the vent and out of that hellhole, it was only now, seeing how torn up his brother was over her death – despite his best efforts to hide it – that he wondered if he could have done something to prevent it. Maybe that was enough, a call for her to answer, or maybe she’d found her way here on her own, searching for Diego. In Vietnam it hadn’t mattered. Nothing about his old life had mattered. But now, Eudora Patch was real again, and she was yet another corpse upon the pile of people that he'd failed to save. 

He found her in Diego’s old room, watching him from the far wall. The colour from her face was drained out, and blood seeped out from the hole that ran through her back and out through her chest, soaked through the navy vest that marked her as police. Shame it wasn’t of the bulletproof variety. Klaus’ brother sat there, oblivious, flinging a knife into the air and catching it between his fingers, spinning and swapping the blade in an absent-minded sort of way that he’d made a habit of since childhood. The detective watched with a look of pride and of longing – a sad smile. If she was here, then she must have really cared about Diego. Ghosts didn’t haunt just anywhere. 

“Are you going to talk to her?” Ben, the voice on his shoulder. 

“No, I…” he hesitated, trying to recall that night at the motel. Everything was a blur, he’d been in so much pain, so desperate, starved, hopeless. “I can’t. This is, well, it’s sort of my fault isn’t it?”

Ben shook his head in Klaus’ peripheral, something he did very often, as people were inclined to do when they tagged along with Klaus. Walking, talking disaster. “How’d you manage to come up with that one? Cha-Cha killed her, put a bullet right through her chest.” He sighed, “that’d do it.”

“I’m the reason she was there in the first place, I got captured then lead her right into their trap.” He struggled to keep his voice below a whisper. 

“What were you supposed to do, Klaus? Stay silent and wait for the psychopaths to kill you once they had what they wanted?”

“Ok, but I should have helped her, I should have at least stayed, should’ve at least done something –“

“Hey.” It was her, she was looking over at them, standing there outside the doorway. Klaus pointed at himself, mouthing ‘who, me?’ Relief and surprise washed over the detective’s face. “It’s true,” she breathed, “you really can see the dead.”

Ben waved at her enthusiastically, grinning. Klaus gulped, he didn’t know where to begin. He wasn’t used to ghosts being so… chilled out. What the other’s didn’t realise was that death and pain often twisted the mind beyond sense. The creatures who reached out to him, desperate to be heard, more often than not were something less than human, especially those who met a violent, untimely end. It didn’t get much more violent or untimely than a bullet in the back. “Err,” he stammered, “yeah, yeah I can.” His voice was loud enough now to pull his brother out of his blade-spinning trance. He didn’t seem too bothered. Klaus talked to himself a lot – or rather, he talked to Ben a lot. “Thanks,” he said, quieter this time, “for saving me.”

There it was again, that sad smirk. “Don’t mention it.”

“What did you say?” Diego flung the knife across the room, right through Patch’s invisible form, and buried itself into the neighbouring wall with a thud. Her body flickered blue around the edges, that uncanny sense of unreality to remind that she wasn’t really there. Klaus winced. “Go be weird somewhere else.”

“Oh sorry, are you busy?” He asked, rich with sarcasm, “I’ll let you brood in peace then.” It was a stock standard snarky response, but Diego could tell that his heart wasn’t in it. Something was bothering him. Klaus couldn’t take his eyes off Patch, and the way she was looking at Diego, like there were a thousand things she wanted to say that she had accepted he would never hear. 

Klaus caught her eye. “Is it selfish,” she asked, “that I want him to know I’m here?” She chuckled to herself, “I know it will only make it harder, but I also know that he–“

“He blames himself,” Klaus finished. She nodded, and went back to leaning against the wall. The hilt of Diego’s knife stuck through the bloody gash across her chest. 

“You wanna tell me what you’re playing at Klaus?”

“I said,” he glanced over at Ben, who was grimacing like Klaus was about to make a terrible mistake. Perhaps he was. “I said you blame yourself, for what happened to Patch.” The silence that followed was heavy, it weighed down on them both as Diego narrowed his eyes, unfathomable. 

“And what makes it any of your business, huh?” He jumped up from the bed, landing heavily on the old floorboards with those ridiculous combat boots. “I wasn’t there for her,” for a moment he let sadness betray his expression, and then he was back, “and anyway it’s not like you knew her, you don’t know anything about me either!” Across the room, Patch rolled her eyes and made a face. Klaus sniggered. Big mistake. “Hey!” He shouted, stepping towards the doorway where Klaus was standing. “What’s so fucking funny, asshole, what makes you think you can come in here and talk to me about her?” He took a deep breath and another step forwards. Patch watched on from over his shoulder. Diego’s voice was soft, but the tone was sharp and bitter. “Look, I know you’ve never had someone relying on you like that. Letting people down, for you it’s everyday but not for the rest of us. Why do you all of a sudden care about anyone other than yourself? Why can’t you all just leave me the hell alone?”  
Klaus stared him down, clam. “I could, but she won’t.”

“What the hell are you talking about.” Surprise came in the form of confusion, but Diego knew exactly what his brother meant. 

“She’s here, Diego, I was trying to–“ Diego shoved Klaus’ shoulders, pushing him back. He reeled, scanning the air in a sort of frenzy. 

“What do you mean she’s here, where is she?” He grabbed Klaus again, shaking him, “where is she?’ He yelled. 

Patch spoke up. “Tell him to calm the hell down for a start.”

Klaus smirked, which only made Diego angrier. “Well, she says to calm down, for a start” Diego scowled and let his brother go yet again. 

“Eudora?” He called, eyes wide and hopeful. His stutter was coming back. “C - can I see her? Can you do that?”

“Err, I don’t know Diego, It’s never worked before.” 

He nodded, thinking it over. “That’s okay,” he muttered, “tell her I’m sorry.”

“She can, err, she can hear you man.”

“Right, right, okay. Patch?” He rose his voice, as if her were addressing a crowd. He turned back to Klaus, shaking his head. “I swear to God bro if you’re messing with me I’ll –“

“I’m not, Diego, I promise.” 

He nodded to himself, tears threatening. “Okay. Well, what does she say?”

Patch stepped out of the bedroom to face Diego’s unseeing eyes in the hall. She searched his face, looking for some sign of recognition. Nothing. “Tell him he’s an idiot. Tell him it was my own damn fault for getting myself killed, not his. Tell him I’m sorry too. But, tell him he’s an asshole too.”

“Okay I’m getting sort of mixed messages there,” Klaus remarked. Ben chuckled, sitting off to the side watching it all unfold. 

“I just, I don’t know where to start.” She admitted.

Diego was looking at Klaus expectantly. “Well, spit it out man what does she say?”

“She says you’re an idiot–“

“Yeah that sounds like her, love you too, Eudora.” The detective scoffed. 

“Let me finish man, she says you’re an idiot for blaming yourself. She’s the one who went in there alone, and they’re the ones who shot her.”

“Yeah well, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re not here now and that I could’ve changed that.”

Patch spoke up again, ordering her thoughts. “Maybe I would’ve been alright if I’d worn spandex and a domino mask,” she sniggered.

“Yeah, maybe you should’ve chugged raw eggs too,” Klaus giggled. 

“She’s making fun of me,” he sighed, exasperated. He pointed at Klaus, “You and her are making fun of me, this is just great. Although you may be gone Eudora,” he lamented, grinning, "it seems I will never escape your ridicule – and it’s leather,” he snapped. She was smiling, nothing sad about it now. Klaus hardly ever saw the dead smile, there wasn’t much to smile about where they were. 

“Tell him…” she considered the words carefully, unsure if they should be said at all. “Tell him I love him.” 

Klaus smiled, “she says she loves you.” The words barely escaped his mouth before Diego’s fist met his shoulder with great force. 

“Fucking lair,” he snapped, “she would never say that.”

“Oww, ass! Don’t dead-arm the messenger! She said it, I’m serious.”

Diego gave a half-hearted chuckle, “I knew you’d come around.” He blew a kiss into the air, facing entirely in the wrong direction, but the sarcastic sentiment was there. Suddenly, his lip began to tremble, comedics aside. “I – I’m sorry, Patch, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, with Klaus, repeating her words in an echo moments after. She stepped closer to Diego, placing a wavering, bluish hand by his face. “be alive, okay?” 

“And, err, she’s touching your face right now, it’s sweet really,” Klaus said, trying to communicate the situation. 

“I know,” Diego whispered, “I can feel it.” Patch had already stepped back from him. 

“No, man, you really can’t.” 

“So, err, Patch?” He called, “are you gonna just hang around, is that what you do when you’re dead?”

She smiled, “Sorry Diego, I have better things to do, even now.” 

Klaus nodded solemnly. “She says that she’s gonna be watching you every second of every day forever.” Diego raised his eyebrows in confusion. “She’s gonna make sure you’re nice to your brother Klaus and never hit him or she’ll haunt you.” 

“Shut the hell up,” he sighed. “What I mean is, can I see you again?”

“I’d like that,” she answered, and this time Klaus relayed her message. She stepped away into the air, and she was gone.


End file.
